The engagement of the European Union in the Gulf region tends to boil down to a few issues: The expansion of trade opportunities and economic engagement of EU member states with the region; the role the EU can play in assisting the US in disengaging from its Iraq quagmire, for example, by promoting training programs for Iraqi security forces or hold meetings to pledge reconstruction funds; and the determination by the EU-3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) to engage the Islamic Republic of Iran diplomatically over its disputed nuclear program to avoid another dangerous conflict in the region. Similarly and in this context, the annual EU-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ministerial meetings are dominated by discussions about the impending free trade agreement (now in discussion for the 15th year), the Arab-Israeli conflict, or references to the ongoing political reform process in the Gulf and the need for the GCC countries to improve their human rights record. Beyond these, little substantive and constructive dialogue on other issues appears to be taking place.
The most clearly missing area of engagement is education. While the overall GCC-EU trade relationship has expanded to about $80 billion, nearly double of what is was in 2000, very little financial resources have been allocated to the field of education. The ministerial communiqué from the annual GCC-EU meeting in Manama in April only makes a fleeting reference to the “comprehensive development of education” without providing any details. And while cooperation at the university and higher education level was agreed upon more at the 1995 Granada summit, the project never materialized, and was subsequently shelved. Till now, the political will required to turn education into a cornerstone of GCC-EU relations has not been exhibited.
This is a glaring omission especially since the demand for educational services is rapidly growing within the region. A simple look at the demographic development in the GCC countries reveals a structure that has children and students making up a majority. In Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait, over 50 percent of the population is below the age of 24; it is around 40 percent in the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. In comparison, the figure stands at around 30 percent among most of the EU member states.
Currently there are 7.2 million students in the GCC countries in the 6-18 age group. At the higher education level, student enrollment figures are rapidly approaching 800,000.
Given the current debate about terrorism, it is of even greater consequence that education is the one area where the outlook and vision of a young population is being shaped and determined. As far as the GCC countries are concerned, issues of expansion, the appropriateness of the current curriculum, the link between educational output and labor market needs, and quality rank high among the minds of policy-makers. And while the lingering effects of 9/11 mean that access to the traditional market for Gulf students in the US remains restricted, it opens the door for Europe to step in and play a critical role — an opportunity gap that exists and must be filled.
Among the possibilities that should be considered are encouraging European institutions to set up subsidiaries in the GCC countries; expanding access for Gulf students in European study programs; establishing linkages between European and Gulf institutions of higher learning through twining programs; and mobilizing European technical cooperation agencies and appropriate NGOs to better promote their services. The EU-GCC University Project in regional studies, as envisioned by the Grenada Ministerial Meeting of July 2000, should also be revived. European institutions should also look into the possibility of offering scholarship programs. The idea that the GCC countries are rich enough to fund all these programs themselves is outdated and such a notion stands in contrast to the overall value of educational exchanges, advancement and the future development of the Gulf region. The spending on education as a percentage of the total budgets of the GCC member countries has increased significantly in recent years as well. If EU governments and institutions are serious about promoting educational services instead of making funding issues the key issues of cooperation, they will certainly find receptive ears among the GCC partners.
A report — “The EU and the GCC: A New Partnership” — first published in 2002 by the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and the Germany-based Bertelsmann Foundation, argued: “The new EU-GCC Partnership should attribute the greatest importance to cooperation in the field of education. This is in many ways more urgently needed than cooperation in trade, finance or energy. The very high priority attributed to cooperation in education should be made into the distinguishing feature of the new EU-GCC Partnership, and generous financial means should be made available to substantiate it.”
In its updated version of February 2005, this point is made even more forcefully. One can only hope that this time around, relevant policy-makers and officials will follow that recommendation.
— Dr. Christian Koch is the director of the GCC-EU Relations Program at the Gulf Research Center, Dubai.
